Costa Luminosa Review

3.5 / 5.0
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Costa Luminosa, Dubai March 2010

Review for the Middle East Cruise on Costa Luminosa
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candycane37
First Time Cruiser • Age 40s

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Sail Date: Mar 2010

I fancied going away for my birthday to Dubai and was looking at going on the Brilliance of the seas but saw a brilliant deal 80% off on a cruise only direct with Costa cruises website a week before departure. Booked a B5 balcony cabin on deck 6 mid ship. Had to phone up the call centre as there were technical problems with the website but the lady booked the cruise quickly and efficiently and let me pick out a cabin myself. I booked direct flights with Emirates and used my Marriott hotel points to stay at the Renaissance Deira hotel the night before embarkation. I would definitely recommend flying the day before if you can as there were guests that arrived at 7.00am on the morning of embarkation. It was a long day for them as they could not get into their cabins until 18.30.

The flight over with Emirates was excellent, I choose the 9.45 from Gatwick which landed at approx 20.35 in Dubai on Friday. Went to Duty free, grabbed a taxi and it was a short ride to the hotel. We just relaxed round the pool and had a mooch round Deira the day of embarkation as the check in time for the cruise was 15.00. The time you could go to your cabin was 18.30. The hotel extended our check out till 15.00 so we made our way to the ship then and checked in. Check in was efficient, there was nobody else checking in so we just walked straight on with no queues. We were carrying a large bottle of water on board as it was so hot. We got to the gangway and the security guard was very rude saying "I will tell you now, you are not allowed THAT on board"!. Saying it like a bottle of water was some banned illegal substance! Luckily for us it was the wrong gangway to use for getting on the ship so we went to the next gangway and walked on no problems. Little did that security guard know we had 4 bottle of duty free vodka and enough cans of soft drink in our suit cases to last the whole trip, ha ha. We just sat in the sun till 6.30pm and then went to our cabin and our suitcases arrived shortly after. I was very pleased with the cabin, it was larger than other balcony cabins I have been in with a good sized balcony and lovely beds. The cabin attendant was a bit surly, normally they knock and say hello, but this one just seemed to not be bothered, we would often return to our cabin around midday to 1pm and the cabin was still not made up despite us always using the make up room/do not disturb signs. Even with the do not disturb sign on the door, he would still knock and walk straight in the room! On departure we said thank you and goodbye to him and he just stared at us with a blank face like we were an inconvenience! Oh well!.

I did not really care for the buffet. The choices were very limited. Only some orange runny scrambled egg, really cheap awful sausages and bacon etc for breakfast. We tried the dining room for breakfast but it was just the same as the buffet and you still had to serve yourself which I just thought was pointless and there was even less room than in the buffet trying to get in between tables and people walking about. Food was very oily and salty. Some things were almost inedible and I am not a fussy eater at all. The evening meal in the restaurant was much nicer but again the waiters were a bit surly. We had to ask for menus after being seated for a while and there was no interaction as there have been on other cruise lines. I feel that as Costa has a compulsory service charge, the staff feel that they can give the minimum service. I just need the point out that the pizza and the watery ice cream from the machines were awful. I don't understand this as the Italians are renown for their amazing pizza and ice cream!

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